 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: justwannaplay
Date: 2022-12-02 17:15
Hello there, coming back after a very long absence. Took up my clarinet just a few months ago, trying to learn again with my Baerman (2nd division) and it was so bizarre - I couldn't even make out the notes, fingering. So I put the clarinet aside. Just a few weeks ago I started once more, having found at my childhood home my old Rubank Elementary. I was very happy with it, finding it very approachable as a course (can we say there is a difference between a 'course' and a 'method'?); there I was pleased with myself, when then appears lesson 11 (at least in my edition - which just to show you how old it is costed $1.50 at the time) 'Upper Regsiter'. Don't get me wrong, I can play those notes, but pedagogically speaking, for young students starting out, this seems much too great a leap. The lesson before is very basic three-quarter time with the middle/lower register.
I wonder if this has been changed at all. For those of you who teach, what do you think? (I know the students have to learn the upper register at some point but I think it could be done better - they get something like 5/6 upper register notes in one lesson!)
Elizabeth
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-12-02 17:38
Hi Elizabeth,
I'm learning from scratch as an adult, and I would agree that the order of teaching is quite complicated.
My current frustration is that I am nearly able to manage a Grade 4 exam, but can't do Grade 3. One of my friends, who is a good clarinet player, used to just say "skip Grade 2 and 3 and go straight to 4", but it doesn't sit right with me.
I feel as though I ought to be able to do the difficult grade 2 and 3 skills before moving on to the easier grade 4 pieces.
I keep wondering if maybe different people acquire skills in a different order?
Maybe if they do, then setting up a single written syllabus which will work for everyone is not possible? Perhaps what we really need it a teacher who can hand us the right exercises in the right order, according to our progress and abilities?
Jen
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Author: Hunter_100
Date: 2022-12-02 18:32
When I took lessons in middle school, my teacher used the Rubank intermediate and advanced books. I recall she had me jumping all through out the books, and not going through them in page order.
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Author: justwannaplay
Date: 2022-12-02 18:42
Yes, a good teacher who understands adults learning from scratch or taking up the instrument again, should be able to start one on a good foundation and help one progress accordingly, without having that student experience frustration (or being under challenged).
I admire that you are learning the clarinet from scratch as an adult. I first learned at 12 and kept it up until I was 17. Then I took it up again around 2004 - got up to quite a good level and then - well I was entered at grade 5 (UK curriculum and not my choice) and that experience was a little traumatising for me. It's not exactly why I dropped it again, but it did leave me feeling deflated.
So my feeling is that one can jump too far ahead, making one take a step backward. I would myself advise mastering the grade 2 and 3 (there may be a reason why there are skills in them that you find difficult), before going onto the 4, but I'm not a music teacher and I don't know the exams, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-12-02 19:59
Hi justwannaplay,
I think you're right. It doesn't feel right to me to try to jump ahead to grade 4.
The ABRSM syllabus changes over at the end of December. That means that the pieces I've been learning for four years can no longer be played in the exams and I have to start to learn a whole new set.
I think I am going to leave off learning my old tunes from the Grade 4 2018 syllabus and jump into the new 2022 syllabus at Grade 2. I'm sure no one will notice, and I will have a lot more fun that way!
Jen
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-12-02 20:01
My take on this is that (for youngins' particularly) learning an instrument is taken for granted to be a two track system. You go to "beginner band" at school which is learning to play together. As a matter of course the music has to be rather slow and "range free" so that most of the class can get it. Those who are still confused learn from the sounds and actions of those around them who are catching on faster.
The other track is private lessons. The instructor is savvy enough to know what material is appropriate for the needs of that individual student at that particular moment.
The two tracks are NOT often compatible. By that I mean what the individual student is capable of playing, or what material needs to be worked on will NOT line up with what is being done in "band." However, the two separate tracks COMPLEMENT one another. I still remember the first day I produced a sound on my clarinet along with the rest of the group in beginner band. It must have sounded just awful but to me it was one of the most magical experiences that I've ever had and keeps me coming back for more every day.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: justwannaplay
Date: 2022-12-02 20:56
I agree with you both Hunter_100 and Paul (particularly Paul from personal experience). Yes a teacher can (and should) pick and choose what the student plays and have supplementary materials, but I'm just playing along lesson to lesson and noticed that particular leap in the Rubank. My question is more on the Rubank Elementary course, with regards to that choice of lesson there. I mean, what was N. W. Hovey thinking? If I had the ability to write a music method/course I think I would introduce the upper register in a different way. I can see the rationale of having the student play lower C and by just moving the thumb, upper G, but the whole lesson is just out of the blue and seems so random.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-12-02 21:37
Maybe it depends a bit on who taught him? I suppose we have no idea what wild hoops he was expected to jump through when he was 12. Maybe he thought he was giving a much gentler introduction than he had.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-12-03 00:27
Actually that's how I teach beginners to play the clarion. If you approach it linearly and expect the student to understand the air pressure difference between middle line Bb and middle line B natural the result is.........the dreaded break. If you tell your student to make a sudden exertion of air on the chalumeau C while pressing the register key, you are more likely to get the clarion G. Once the student understands THE INHERENT DIFFERENCE between the registers on those and other notes around it........there is no "break."
................Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2022-12-03 00:49
justwannaplay wrote:
> I wonder if this has been changed at all. For those of you who
> teach, what do you think? (I know the students have to learn
> the upper register at some point but I think it could be done
> better - they get something like 5/6 upper register notes in
> one lesson!)
>
> Elizabeth
Long post - but this is a more or less unavoidable issue for clarinet beginners and their teachers and it isn't completely straightforward.
To continue in the direction Paul was pointing, the Rubank books in general are much more useful for early private instruction. They have serious drawbacks when a band teacher tries to use them in a school program. For an individual (private) student I never found the pacing of the material to be too fast. The teacher can always slow things down with supplementary material that puts the technical content in the Rubank book into more musically interesting contexts. The problem I always found with Rubank Elementary, and even more, Intermediate, was that it was dry and almost exclusively technical. The series is old (my Rubank Elementary has a 1933 copyright ). There has been much more interesting material published since then. But Rubank, like the 19th century methods (Klose, Baermann, Langenus, etc.), is very much to the point technically.
But to your specific question about the jump from Lesson 10 to the 5 clarion notes in Lesson 11, I don't think it should be a problem **if the chalumeau notes are secure** - that is, if there no issues with covering the holes or even reaching some of the lower ones. This is sometimes a problem with young students who start before their hands are big enough to reach everything. It shouldn't be an issue for an adult unless the adult is old enough for flexibility and mobility of the fingers to have become a problem. (I am now, in my mid-70s after 60 years of playing clarinet, having trouble sometimes covering everything that needs to be covered - very frustrating).
Assuming the lower (chalumeau) register is secure and all that is needed is to open the register vent to produce the right hand half of the clarion register (G-F-E-C-B), there isn't I don't think, much reason to delay them or separate them on different pages. You're starting on a note that, once it comes out, should be fairly easy to produce reliably. Once that happens, adding one finger of the right hand for each of the other notes in sequence isn't much different from C-B(b)-A-G-F-E in the chalumeau. You can get used to the difference in embouchure on 6 notes as easily as you can with only one. As long as you stay mostly with the notes in sequence going up or down, Rubank's introduction of 6 notes at once shouldn't be too much of a hurdle.
The real problem with true beginners when they hit those notes tends to be, not producing them, but re-associating the fingerings with names that are different. For a student with more or less mature hands renaming the fingerings can cause more frustration than the notes themselves. This isn't really a clarinet problem, it's a cognitive one. I've personally never felt that there was any reason to postpone this process any longer than was necessary because of a student's hand limitations. Some books split the initial 6 notes into two groups - G-F-E and D-C-B. You can certainly do that on your own. Take your time while going back and reinforcing earlier material or finding some of the supplementary books Rubank published with the basic series (or look for anything else designed for beginner clarinetists who are not yet comfortable "over the break").
Many of the "band methods" used in school programs do introduce the clarion register relatively early. The ones that introduce those 5 (or 6, if you go down to B4) notes as a downward sequence tend to be less frustrating for students than the few books that start on C5 or B4 and go upward.
I do think that Rubank, like many other books, makes a mistake in Lesson 12 by having so many passages that move *upward* over the "break" - from A or G up to B. IMHO the actual crossing should also be started by playing downward from B4 to A4 and C5 to Bb4 and not the other direction at first. I'd much rather see descending C and F scales reinforced first, before adding the ascending halves. You might find the whole transition easier if you try that on your own. Take exercises 5, 6, and 7 in Lesson 12 and learn the descending halves of each section first (#5 has two different patterns with a double bar separating them).
Karl
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-12-03 09:49
Hi Karl,
Thank you for explaining that, it is really helpful.
The thing that you mention in the last paragraph is what I am seeing in the syllabus I am following too.
Grade 2 is all below the break with maybe a note or two above. Simple timing.
Grade 3 is swooping repeatedly across the break, back and forth over and over again, with some very fast sections. + dotted crotchets. Difficult!
Grade 4 is almost all quite slow and almost all above the break, but introduces much more complex timing, with upbeats of many different lengths.
It feels to me as though Grade 3 should actually take about three times as long as grade 2 and 4 do each.
Interestingly, I am the adult exception to your "if the hand is big enough" rule. My hands were not big enough, and I spent the last 2 years figuring that out and getting all my pinkie keys extended.
This is a really helpful thread justwannaplay - thank you for starting it!
Jen
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2022-12-03 12:56
As a full time clarinet teacher I agree with pretty much everything written here by my colleagues. I am a big believer in getting beginning students to play in the clarion (upper) register, and then the altissimo (notes above high C) as soon as it is practical. This is because those notes require that all the fundamentals of air, embouchure, voicing, and hand position be in place. Not waiting too long helps to very quickly refine and further establish those fundamentals. The upper register is where one really learns to play the instrument.
This assumes a few very important elements: 1) proper equipment - particularly careful attention to reed strength and an appropriate mouthpiece, 2) close supervision by a private instructor, and 3) good practice habits. Without these jumping high too soon is a recipe for establishing some incredibly detrimental habits for most students!
The pacing of when students are ready to take on the upper registers varies widely by individual. In my studio most beginniners who I start from scratch or close to it are regularly playing up to an altissimo F by sometime in their second year - not always quickly and not always articulated but with good tone and decent intonation. Some get to that point in just a few months. Others much later. If a student can slur to to these notes but not tongue them successfully, they also tend to get much more interested in the refining that aspact of their playing as well.
Once ready, learning the clarion notes can be simply a matter of pushing the register key down and exporing all the new sounds for a bit. Learning what they are called and what they look like on the page can come a little later. There's good stuff in Rubank, but it's definitely a sight before sound approach by intention. It was written in an age when, supposedly, more students had significant experience learning, performing, and often reading music in other contexts before picking up a clarinet for the first time. This is what I was told when I was a student, and it does make sense. Really old school band method books I've seen definitely assumed quite a bit of prior knowledge of notation.
Back to the present: I've heard Yehuda Gilad talk about starting beginning students with the altissimo notes and then working down from there. I think he was only half joking!
Anders
Post Edited (2022-12-03 13:28)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2022-12-03 22:51
One thing I did regularly with beginning students once they could play down to F3 comfortably was to have them play through selected chalumeau exercises and tunes that stayed within the range of E3 to C4, but with the register key open. There are a lot of simple tunes that stay within that 6-note range in addition to the book exercises that have already been learned. We would read the already familiar chalumeau notes, so the notation and the note names weren't relevant. Most kids could do it without any problem. Though I never taught adult beginners from scratch, I'm pretty sure this would be a very short step for them. Once the clarion notes are produced comfortably, the notation can be dealt with separately.
Karl
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-12-03 23:03
Hi Karl,
That really sounds like an excellent idea. I think that would be great for adults too.
Looking at Anders comments, the one thing that really strikes me is how lucky a student would be to have such good equipment and attentive teaching. I suspect a lot of learners do not have either of those things.
Jen
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Author: justwannaplay
Date: 2022-12-05 19:43
Thank you for this very interesting feedback. What you say, Anders, about Rubank being written in an age when many students would have had significant prior experience of playing other instruments makes a great deal of sense - I can see that. Likewise with many other methods from that era.
'This assumes a few very important elements: 1) proper equipment - particularly careful attention to reed strength and an appropriate mouthpiece, 2) close supervision by a private instructor, and 3) good practice habits. Without these jumping high too soon is a recipe for establishing some incredibly detrimental habits for most students!'
Yes, to this. And it is somewhat rare when a student does get that level of individual attention. I did not have private lessons as a child - I did fairly well because I love the clarinet so I was always motivated to learn just from my weekly lessons and band practice.
I do not recall myself how the upper register was taught to me. I don't have a recollection of the Rubank lesson 11, but hey that was a long time ago!
And thank you Karl for your very detailed answer on this. Agree very much to what you say about the lower register needing to be secure before tackling the upper.
Many thanks again.
Elizabeth
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Author: allencole
Date: 2022-12-08 23:06
I'm not a big fan of the Rubank Elementary & Intermediate books, but they were not intended AFAIK to be the sole lesson curriculum.
But I strongly concur with all the other teachers here that you need to get your low-note fingerings secure ASAP in order to prepare for clarion register, and that you should go into clarion ASAP, and at least some altissimo once your upper clarion register is secure.
Another good reason to get your low notes together is that it gives you enough range in the first register to start feeling your way around and playing by ear as well as by written note. Great thing to do with Christmas coming up. I find that adults in particular practice more when they have a puzzle to work.
To me, the instrument's greatest weakness is that you can blow it far too easily in the first register and actually sound good there, but without employing the kind of muscle that it takes to tune and stabilize in the second or third registers. The sooner you get up there, the more accurate picture you have of how you really need to support your air. A player who stays in the first register too long may get addicted to soft reeds.
The greatest weakness of beginner situations--especially school band class--is that you spend quite a bit of time just playing left-hand notes in the first register. For players who have difficulty covering the holes, the problem usually manifests itself in the right-hand notes, where fingers could be too small for the holes or too short to reach the pinky keys & levers. You don't find this out until you try those low notes!
If there's a problem, maybe it's just right-thumb position, or in 2nd register incorrect A-key technique with the left index finger. Or maybe a person with slender or short fingers has an actual problem with the instrument itself. I've encountered many a middle-schooler who benefitted from trading their clarinet for one with smaller tone holes while the instruments were still on rental. There are even some who should probably switch to flute or oboe before that clarinet is bought and paid for. The private teacher can spend enough time with you to find out.
I strongly agree with Karl on approaching the second register with just the left hand, and then adding the right-hand notes. You probably learned your low notes the same way, and it also helps challenge you to support better. Also, I've found that the 'break' is much less of an issue if you approach it from above rather than from below. Reaching from B down to A and going back up helps to foster better technique with the A-key...a key that students tend to develop bad habits with while still just in first register. (Bad habits that they almost always fail to diagnose as their actual problem with the dreaded break)
Allen Cole
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The Clarinet Pages
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